Sauber recently announced it had entered into a partnership with Chelsea football club. The F1 team will place a Chelsea logo on the car for the Spanish Grand Prix, while Chelsea will have Sauber logos in their stadium and sell Sauber F1 merchandise at the venue.

Chelsea’s official website said:

“The new partnership is focused on ways to enhance sporting and business performance. This includes the exchange of knowledge in sport science, launching joint commercial initiatives, merchandising, events, and marketing and linked sponsorship opportunities.”

The two parties hailed the deal as “the first of its kind” – but it’s not.

Newcastle United sponsored the Lister Storm GT 1 team from 1996 to 2002 (winning various races). It looked spectacular and I loved it. The fact that it was a car with the Newcastle United badge and a Jaguar V12 in the back made it special.

Yes, the Sauber-Chelsea deal was the first in Formula One, but it was not the first in motorsport.

This brings me to my main point. Football fans hate other football teams with a passion. I’m a Newcastle United fan, therefore I hate Sunderland and Middlesbrough. I will not support or purchase anything related to those teams.

This is a potential problem for Sauber: it will gain many Chelsea fans but might lose many of its other footballing fans. For a small team, this could be catastrophic.

I, for one, will not be rooting for them this coming race.

Sorry!

The 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix should never have taken place. It could be a catastrophic decision made by Bernie Ecclestone and the FIA in their push to broaden the sphere of Formula One in the Middle East.

Picture: REUTERS

We all know Bernie’s great dream of taking the F1 circus to the Middle East and away from Europe; this will make it much more difficult. I believe the people of many Middle Eastern countries will view the F1 fraternity with disdain and distrust.

The only thing that could have been worse is for the race to have taken place in Libya in the last weeks of Muammar Gaddafi’s reign.

Having said all that, it was an interesting race. Sebastian Vettel took his first victory of 2012, but it wasn’t all plain sailing. Kimi Raikkonen should have won the race.

The reason why he didn’t win was a lack of team orders. Yes, they have been made legal again, and the Lotus team should have given the order for Romain Grosjean to make way for him as soon as Kimi came behind him. They didn’t and thus he didn’t win.

However, you can’t take away the fact that after a shocking start to the season, Red Bull seem to have sorted out their technical problem by simply filling up a hole in the exhaust. Funny, I know, but it seems to have done the trick.

Nico Rosberg needs to be fined or have points deducted for his tactics against Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton – absolutely shocking. It seems as if the victory last weekend has given him a “big head”, and he is starting to drive like Michael Schumacher did in the 1990s.

It’s all good and well to want to defend your position, but for the love of all that is holy, you should never push the other driver on to the grass or into the barrier or advertisement board. That is completely unacceptable.

This year looks set to keep the fans on the edge of their seats, with four races done and four different drivers taking the victories. We still have no idea who is going to take the title. We will, however, have a better idea when F1 returns to Europe.

With two races of the 2012 Formula One season done, we can make some assumptions.

First, the McLarens are the fastest cars on the grid. They may not be the most reliable but hey, it’s always easier to make a fast car reliable than a reliable car fast, as they say. The season will be decided on how lucky the two McLaren drivers are. If the past two seasons are anything to go by, it’s going to be Jenson Button crowned the champion.

McLaren driver Jenson Button leads on turn one of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 18

Second, the new regulation changes have hurt Red Bull more than the other teams. From everything I’ve seen, Sebastian Vettel looks worried. We haven’t seen this from him in his whole career. I would have put money on Red Bull dominating in 2012, but it’s going to give the other teams a chance to win some races.

Third, despite Fernando Alonso’s win in the previous race, Ferrari are in a lot of trouble. As I’ve said in the past, Alonso said before the start of the season that they would not be competitive, and he was right. The victory came on the back of good luck and good decisions in bad weather.

Mercedes look pretty good this season. Michael Schumacher can honestly win a couple of races if he calms down at the start and gets back in the same mindset that took him to seven world championships. Nico Rosberg doesn’t seem to be able to match him in the car; he destroyed Schumi in the first two seasons as his teammate, but Schumi is back in form.

The new rule changes will give young drivers a chance of getting on the podium and maybe sneaking in a victory or two. Take the previous race, for example: we all knew Sergio Perez was a great young driver, but to take second place in difficult weather conditions proved he is a champion in waiting. Rumours suggest he is going to replace Felipe Massa at Ferrari as soon as the middle of season.

As you know, I’ve been a big fan of Bruno Senna, who is in the top 10 in the standings. The Williams looks like a car capable of fighting for podiums this season, and this is exactly what Senna needs. Give him a chance and he will win a race. During his time with the Lotus-Renault team last year, he showed he was capable of getting good results.

This season saw the return of Kimi Raikkonen. I have always liked him; on a good day there is nobody faster than him. Motivation was a problem before he left Ferrari, but he seems motivated to take the Lotus team to the top of the grid. Give him a good car and he will win races and championships.

It has just been announced that Italian Formula One driver Jarno Trulli will not be racing in 2012. This after his (former) team said he had been replaced by Russian Vitaly Petrov.

It is the first time since 1970 that no Italian driver will participate in F1.

Jarno Trulli of Italy leaves his car during the Hungarian F1 Grand Prix in July 2011. Picture: REUTERS

Will Italy, on the driver front, be missed? I would have to say no.

What happened? They produced the first double world champion, Alberto Ascari, and the first-ever world champion in Giuseppe Farina. It is as if the whole country then paid more attention to Ferrari than to the drivers, and now it finds itself without a representative on the grid.

The Italian teams — there is only one anyway — need to share the blame in this one. Look at what McLaren are doing in their “youth development” structure; they are nurturing young British talent for the future, and it is paying off. What have Ferrari done in the past?

Can anyone remember Luca Badoer? He used to be the official test driver for Ferrari but then got a chance in 2009 to race for the team. After a couple of races he was fired and forced to see out the rest of his racing career in the dungeon that is GT racing. Not a very nice present for a driver who was loyal to Ferrari for 12 years.

The last two Italian drivers didn’t set the world on fire with their pace, and the only headlines they made were, well, for all the wrong reasons.

Take Jarno Trulli. He has breathtaking pace in qualifying, but come the race, there is usually a string of cars behind him trying to get around him. This is also known as the “Trulli Train”.

His only victory came in Monaco in 2003 at the wheel of the Renault. Things went downhill after that: he left Renault to join Toyota (the only glimmer in this relationship was 2005, when he should have won a couple of races), and then Lotus/Caterham or whatever you want to call that green team at the back of the grid.

I liked Trulli. He seemed to be a good guy and he will be missed in F1.

Let’s take the other Italian ex-F1 driver, Giancarlo Fischicella. He was supposed to be the next Ascari when he started his career at Minardi in 1996. His career only started when he won his first grand prix in Brazil in 2003 — who can forget that race? — and then Renault in 2005.

He is better known for what he did at Ferrari, or didn’t do. Yes, the car was a dog in 2009, but you just have to look at the driver in the other car, Kimi Raikkonen. We all know Raikkonen lost interest after winning the title in 2007, but he still blew Fisi out of the water and made it look easy.

As the 2012 Formula One season looms, there is one certainty: the design of this year’s cars has a dreadfully derivative feel about it. The designers have spoken. Radical and revolutionary, clearly, are out. The cars will feature all the design panache and verve of a platypus.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not about to quibble with the Almighty over his blueprint for this most unfortunate animal. Let’s just agree that the semi-aquatic mammal’s lines do not speak of great design aesthetics, blinding speed or stupendous power. As is the case with this year’s racers, its design is rather ordinary.

McLaren-Mercedes alone have defied the jelly-mould crowd. Their 2011 offering is more svelte and refined. Compared with this year’s platypus racers, it would not be out of place in London’s Design Museum.

Force India 2012 challenger. Picture: Reuters

Ferrari’s F2012 shocked me into stunned silence — bluntly, it’s ugly. And that, too, is symptomatic of the problem, as I would not be able to tell the F2012 apart from the offerings of Red Bull, Lotus, Sauber and Williams were it not for the team liveries emblazoned all over these purported masterpieces of engineering.

The teams, though, need not shoulder all the blame for this design fiasco. We should rather look to the sport’s governing body, the FIA, which is out of touch with the sport, more so with its many fans. The main fascination of Formula One is that the sport is supposed to be on the cutting edge of technology — engineers and designers are meant to put their most radical ideas on display for all the world to marvel at.

Not this year, though.

With the cars seemingly similar, this year could mark the return of the great driver — the Formula One pilot who can eke that little bit extra out of his platypus racer, the man who can hold his fear at bay just a millisecond longer than his competitors can before tapping off the throttle and casting out the anchors …

Pity, then, that the machines they pilot will do almost nothing to attract viewers to the sport.

Were it not for the FIA’s bulging rule book, teams would probably not have followed the route of dull design. One also has to wonder whether the ever-expanding list of rules actually does anything to reduce costs for teams wishing to compete at motorsport’s pinnacle. With each added rule, teams have to redesign their million-dollar machines.

So, for 2012, we will have a field of platypuses roaring around the track with only the drivers standing between each team and the obscurity that comes with failure at this level. In terms of design, this year has already condemned itself to the realm of epic failure.

Let’s hope the platypus cars will be gone by 2013.

We have been waiting for this moment for a couple of months now. We had been counting down the days until we see this year’s challengers, and I have to say it has made me sick to my stomach.

Ferrari unveiled its latest car on Friday via pictures on the internet; this is probably to avoid cleaning up the vomit from all the journalists who would have been present otherwise.

Ferrari.com gives a preview of the team's new car

To describe the look: if the car had a face, its nose would look like Owen Wilson’s. Ferrari are not the only team to have a car with this look; Force India have one that looks exactly the same.

This is not their fault. This rather radical design is due to regulations from the FIA, the governing body, that decided in its wisdom to have the nose of the car considerably lower to the ground than last year. This created a problem for the designers: how would they keep the driver safe and still get the nose down to the minimum level? Hence the Wilson looks.

McLaren-Mercedes, on the other hand, had to deal with the same problem as all the others, and their car is a work of art.

At this stage you might think I’m pro-McLaren and anti-Ferrari, but that is not the case. I have loved the team from Italy since I can remember; they have made some of the most beautiful cars in the history of motorsport, and their car launches have always been a highlight on the F1 calendar.

I just believe they could have gone the McLaren route, not the Force India way.

There is, however, time to change the nose. Look at Renault in 2006; they had a dramatic nose job before the season started just because it was better to look at than the original version. So, Ferrari, you still have time.

This brings me to Red Bull. They have made cars that have looked exactly the same for the past couple of years. It will be interesting to see what their new car will look like.

On the positive side of it, with cars looking the same these days, it is rather refreshing to see something new.

Finally, I have been hammering on about this subject for some time now. The FIA should stop changing the regulations every other year. It goes against its “dream” of saving money; the teams need to adopt to the rules every time and thus spend more money on designing new cars. Please STOP.

The news just broke: Bruno Senna will be driving for Williams F1 in 2012. This, for me, has thrown the whole season on its head.

Formula One driver Bruno Senna of Brazil

As I have said in the past, this seems to be the year that Williams will be getting back to their old winning ways. They have everything pointing in the right direction. They will race with the Renault engines again. The won their last championship in 1997 with Renault and they still have a strong design team on the books.

The two missing pieces in the puzzle for them have been a competitive driver and a major sponsor. That seems to be done and dusted.

If you were the CEO of a huge company looking to put your money on a F1 team, which one would you choose? I would put it on a Williams Renault car driven by Senna. Just imagine it: the opening race and you see that yellow helmet in that very distinctive blue car … you will get your money back before the fourth race of 2012.

So, expect Senna to be back on the podium, and we might even hear the Brazilian national anthem played for Senna again.

As nations go, Brazil has given the world of sport some of the greatest superstars it has ever seen. Yes, this is mainly in the racing and football world, but these are the two most watched sports in the world.

It gave us soccer greats such as Kaka, Ronaldo and Pele, and it gave F1 arguably the greatest star the world has ever known, Ayrton Senna.

It has been almost 20 years since his death at Imola in 1994, and the sport is still looking for the next Senna.

Enter Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa.

Barrichello is one of the oldest drivers around the F1 paddock and holds the record for the most Grand prix starts, at 322. He has driven for some of the most exciting and successful teams in the sport, including Ferrari, Brawn GP, Stewart GP, Honda F1 and Williams F1. After Senna, he is one of the most successful Brazilians yet to race F1.

Williams Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello of Brazil speaks to the media ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November last year. Picture: Reuters

Massa, on the other hand, has only driven for two teams, Ferrari and Sauber F1. He was seen as the next big talent to get into the sport after Michael Schumacher left at the end of 2006 and has driven to some spectacular victories.

Here’s the problem: I never liked either of them. Barrichello I didn’t like because he replaced Eddie Irvine, one of my favourite drivers of all time, at Ferrari in 2000; Massa, because I believe he was the main reason Schumacher didn’t win the title in 2006.

My mind, however, has been changed about Barrichello. I saw an interview with him on Top Gear and he seems to be one of the nicest drivers in the paddock. I have started to follow him closely, and he is one of the best drivers around.

Massa, on the other hand, shouldn’t be a Ferrari driver any more. He hasn’t done anything over the past couple of seasons to justify his place in the team.

Yes, he was in a major accident in 2009 that almost claimed his life, but so was Barrichello. On the weekend of Imola in 1994, the latter hit the wall during one of the practice sessions and had to be rushed to hospital. Yet he came back and did a fantastic job in the rest of his career.

Massa needs to change some things in his life. He needs to find a new team and get motivated, and then he will be back to full force; he just won’t find it at Ferrari.

Barrichello will be in a competitive position this year. If he stays with Williams, he will start winning races again. They have the new Renault engine and one of the best engineering departments in the paddock.

So, my conclusion is that Barrichello is the better driver. However, it is just a matter of time before Brazil gives F1 another superstar.

Over the years, there have been some glorious-looking Formula One cars on the grid, but not all of them were fast.

Take the Jaguar R1, for example — one of the most beautiful cars ever made to compete in the world of F1. It was phenomenal, which could be down to the green livery, but all Jaguar’s cars have been masterpieces.

On the performance side, however, things have been less of an oil painting and more of a train smash. Jaguar F1 recorded no victories and a handful of podiums in their F1 history, but did spawn the now dominant Red Bull team.

Jordan Grand Prix is another team that made breathtaking cars with very little success. Take the 197 in 1997 — the yellow car with a snake at its nose with its tongue running towards the driver’s helmet. It looked fantastic.

Or consider the Jordan from 1999 (called the 199). The snake had gone and in its place came a hornet. This car was to prove Jordan’s most successful, bringing them a couple of victories.

Sadly, the team are no more. They were acquired by several companies after 2005 and today are known as Force India-Mercedes.

Before 2000, the regulations seemed more relaxed and teams could experiment with car design. Take the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34 in the 1970s, one of the most unusual cars to come out of F1. It took only one Grand Prix victory, at the hands of South African Jody Scheckter.

Ken Tyrrell kept that car a secret until it was unveiled, despite having to get smaller tyres from Goodyear, among other requirements. This sort of thing would not be possible today, sadly.

Another unique car from the 1970s was the Brabham BT46 from 1978, better known as the “Fan Car” due to the big fan at the back of the car sucking it to the ground in the corners. Designed by Gordon Murray, a South African, it won its first and only race in the hands of Niki Lauda.

F1 should return to the days where teams had the freedom to design any car they wanted. This would make racing more interesting for the viewers, as all the cars would not look the same.

However, drivers’ safety should never be compromised in the design process. The sport has lost way too many great drivers already.

I was going through an old F1 magazine the other day, covering the 1997 season (my favourite of all time), and I was wondering what happened to all the old F1 masterpieces.

You have to feel sorry for the cars. They have the hopes and dreams of an entire team of engineers and fans pinned on them. Some deliver and some don’t. And after the season is done, they are neatly packed away never to be seen again by any mortal.

But the question is, where do all the old F1 cars go?

Before you say they go to a museum of a particular team, not all the teams are still around today — think Arrows, Brabham, Minardi, Ligier and Prost. So where are they?

Don’t tell me Alain Prost has all of his old cars parked in his garage at home.

Yes, you can go to the factories of Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams, pay a small fortune and walk through several rooms filled with beautiful cars bursting with history.

The problem is, if you are reading this, chances are you are in South Africa, and travelling to Europe these days is not the easiest or cheapest thing to do.

The trend these days is for millionaires and billionaires to buy classic F1 cars and keep them in their garages. This, for me, is the worst thing you can do to the pioneers of the racing world. They will never turn a wheel in anger again, or at all. This makes me sad.

There should be F1 museums all over the world to rake in the money for the FIA, and we all know how much the FIA loves money.

This would also preserve the greats of F1 history for many more generations to come. Just imagine seeing the six-wheeled Tyrrell up close or the black and gold Lotus from the 1970s.

I would pay a considerable amount of money to see and touch the Williams car from 1997 (the Williams FW19). This is the prettiest F1 car ever built. The problem is, when you hear the words Williams F1 1997, you will always think of the incident at Jerez between Michael Schumacher and Williams driver Jacques Villeneuve.